Loves Park officials eye 1 percent sales tax hike to fix roads

A straw poll conducted by Mayor Darryl Lindberg this week shows all 10 of Loves Park’s aldermen are ready to start the process that would place a referendum on the Spring 2014 ballot. It would ask whether a 1 percent sales tax could be tacked on in the city to pay for road fixes.

LOVES PARK — City leaders are preparing a plan to ask voters whether future road improvements should be funded by a new sales tax.

A straw poll conducted by Mayor Darryl Lindberg this week shows all 10 of Loves Park’s aldermen are ready to start the process that would place a referendum on the Spring 2014 ballot. It would ask whether a 1 percent sales tax could be tacked on in the city to pay for road fixes.

“This is something that’s been talked about between officials for some time,” said Ward 1 Ald. Clint Little. “I’d rather it go to the people and have them decide if this is the direction they want the city to take.”

Loves Park shoppers pay different sales tax rates depending on where they shop in town. They pay 7.25 percent in most of the city, 6.75 percent in the portion in Boone County and 8.25 percent at the Meadow Mart Shopping Center on North Second Street. The higher rate at Meadow Mart was established in 2009 to pay for several improvements to the shopping center.

Lindberg delivered a memo to aldermen on Monday, asking each to indicate whether the city should move forward with plans for a public vote on a new sales tax.

The Register Star obtained copies of each alderman’s response through the Freedom of Information Act. All 10 selected “yes, I think we should begin to study this.” None selected the other option: “no, I don’t think this is something I would support.”

Lindberg said Thursday that he needed to see if aldermen supported the potential referendum before the city moved forward. He said it will be up to aldermen to decide whether to put a sunset clause on the sales tax and expects a formal vote later this summer to place a public question on Spring 2014 ballots.

The next step, Lindberg said, would be for the city to fund a detailed engineering study of the work that would be done with the new tax. That way voters know exactly how the new revenue — an estimated $1 million to $1.2 million per year — would be spent.

“If you put it out there for a vote, and you tell the people what you’re going to use this money for, that’s what it needs to go for. You can’t change your mind,” Lindberg said.

Alpine Road, from Riverside Boulevard to Harlem Road, will be one of the top priorities, Lindberg said. Nearly 20,000 people drive on Alpine north of Riverside each day, according to the Illinois Department of Transportation’s daily traffic statistics. And it shows.

“We’ve done our best to patch it. It’s pretty rough, it’s deteriorating,” Lindberg said. “We could do a simple grind and lay a new mat on there, but we need to do more than that. We need to rebuild that road.”

Page 2 of 2 - Shoppers pay 8.25 percent in Cherry Valley, Rockford and Machesney Park, with the exception of the former Machesney Park Mall. The rate is 9.25 percent for businesses at the former mall, a special tax rate to pay for infrastructure improvements around the business center.

The city hopes the Citizens for Roads group that ran Machesney Park’s successful campaign on the road referendum will spearhead the Loves Park effort, Lindberg said in the memo.

Machesney Park used its 1 percent road tax to complete more than 35 miles of roadwork since its referendum was approved in 2008. That totaled $15.4 million in construction projects, according to Greg Anderson, the village’s community development director. In March 2012, voters extended the village sales tax through 2020 by nearly 3-to-1 margin.

The additional 1 percentage-point sales tax would cost Loves Park shoppers an extra $1 on purchases of $100. It wouldn’t apply to food, medicine or titled vehicles. Lindberg said he doesn’t think the tax will discourage shoppers, especially since it would only put Loves Park’s rate on par with its neighbors.